104

This brief article appeared in the March 26, 1911 edition of the

San Antonio Light and

Gazette

:

Houston Girl Perfect

In Miss Lucy Cotton of Houston, Tex., Harrison Fisher, the famous

illustrator, has found his

―

perfect type

‖

of

―

Southern Girl

‖

and she

has just been secured to serve as his model in a series of types he is

engaged upon. Miss Cotton is tall, slender, with the grace of neck,

lambent dark eyes and soft drawling voice to be found among fair

women close to the borders of Mexico.

She has a dimple in her soft chin that responds to every emotion; she

takes vivid and childlike interest in the development of pictures on

canvas. She is waiting with even more breathless interest than the

artist who is launching his Southern type to see how the type will be

received by a public ever critical of, as it is insistent for, creations that

are new.

In the October 2, 1911 edition of the

Williamsport Gazette and Bulletin

(Pennsylvania), Helen Hoyt reported:

The favorite and most recent model of Charles Dana Gibson [

The Gibson Girls

] is Lucy

Cotton, a tall, willowy girl with great soft, brown eyes and shadowy hair.

‖

Lucy appeared in more than a dozen movies from 1910 to 1921 beginning with a bit part

in D. W. Griffith's

The Fugitive

. Other movies included

The Devil, The Misleading Lady,

and

Life Without Soul.

She lived the high life and married several wealthy men: Edward

Russell Thomas (1924 - 1926) (death); Col. Lytton Gray Ament (1927 - 1930) (divorced);

Charles Hann Jr. (1930 - 1932) (divorced); W. F. Magraw (1933 - 1941) (divorced); and

Prince Vladimir Eristavi-Tchitcherine (1941 - 1944) (divorced). When she married the

Russian Prince, she became known as Princess Lucy Cotton. When she married Edward

Russell Thomas, she gave up the stage and screen for her new life as a socialite.

The December 31, 1944 issue of

The American Weekly

carried a lengthy article on the

divorce case of Lucy and the Prince noting

―

...she wanted to lose the Prince for good but

remain a Princess by means of a skillful operation.

‖

In the trial, the Prince had the

attitude that she could keep the title but only

―

over his dead body

‖

and to the surprise

of all he stated that he wasn't really a Prince because he gave up his title when he

became an American citizen and simply incorporated

―

Prince

‖

into his name. Lucy, it

turns out, was not a Princess after all. Lucy, however, continued to use the title Princess.